


cut

by plasmiiids



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Booker Swears One Time, Disabled!Elizabeth, During Canon, Explicit Language, Gen, aka Daisy Isn't Dying For The Development Of A White Character, they're just vibing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28638375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plasmiiids/pseuds/plasmiiids
Summary: In another timeline, in another Columbia, Elizabeth still needs to keep up appearances.
Relationships: Booker DeWitt & Elizabeth
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	cut

**Author's Note:**

  * For [poppywine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppywine/gifts).



“Elizabeth!”

She ignored Booker’s voice and leaned a little closer. “Just a bit farther!” she called down, her arm finally beginning to strain against the railing. The bearded man below her shifted with the ground beneath him, but still he reached, his other side taken up by the girl clinging to it. An explosion sounded in the distance and the child let out a wail as the roofing tiles cracked and fell away around them.

Someone screamed. Elizabeth pretended not to notice. She stood on her tiptoes, biting her lip until she tasted blood -

Then strong arms were around her, pulling her back just in time to hear something snap and watch as the family fell out of view. For her part, Elizabeth screamed and dug her heels into Booker’s shins, relishing in the grunts he made. “You would’ve fallen-”

“Let go!” Her second sleeve, now undone, hung limply at her side as she dug her fingernails into his skin. And to his credit, he did.

Elizabeth sprinted across the airship deck, feet screaming at her from too-small boots, only to feel dread burrow deep in her stomach. Once upon a time she might've hoped for a miracle like the ones in her books; a man clinging on with superhuman strength to the hull, safe, without a scratch on him. The universe was not so kind, she found, staring down over the railing to see clouds and, far below, the ground, where a friendly face had once been.

Gone. The whole building was gone. Her gaze drifted up, to the platform around it - more than that. The man had taken a small chunk of the city down with him.

Around the railing, her grip turned to ice. Something on the city below exploded and torn shreds of fabric drifted past the First Lady, but she paid them little heed. Every breath hung heavy in her throat, bitter enough to poison, and still Elizabeth heard rather than felt Booker approach her from behind.

She felt rather than saw him reach for her shoulder and ducked, slipping past him and darting back towards the doors. He started to say her name, but the word was lost to the wind, and she didn't look back to see if he’d follow.

Once she was inside, Elizabeth started to run. 

She chose the second set of doors to open, to barricade behind her with a chair between the handle and the wood. Staring at the door’s gold details, Elizabeth took in breath after breath until she was fairly certain she’d used up all the air in the room … this gaudy, over-decorated room.

It could've been sleeping quarters, she thought. Her sanctuary came complete with a bed, wardrobe and vanity table in a familiar style, devoid of all the tools she’d made and used over the course of her life. She thought of all the tears she’d opened to get here and wondered if this Elizabeth had ever needed them, if this Elizabeth was alive to need them, if there was an Elizabeth here at all.

Elizabeth kept her mouth in the straightest line she could as she sat down in front of the mirror, staring down her reflection for what must've been a moment too long, because she threw her arm on the desk and cradled her head in it, shaking with barely contained sobs.

She swallowed and tasted iron, inhaled and smelled salt. Her cheeks burned red and her stump brushed against the table as she thought up a thousand apologies that’d go unsaid - I'm sorry, I should've tried harder.

A sharp banging on the door yanked her upwards like someone had pulled on a string attached to her head. Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder and swallowed hard -

“Elizabeth?” Booker’s muffled voice was shakier than she remembered it, but if this was his attempt at trying to be gentle, he was failing miserably. “What are you doing in there..?”

She waited in total silence, the way she used to do when Songbird would come to check on her. Neither were easily deterred, it seemed - he knocked again. “Listen, I-I think you should talk to me.”

A sea of worries roared loud in her ears, and she almost scoffed. Not a chance. It was a bigger challenge to ignore the guilt gnawing at her stomach.

Nothing else came from behind the door, which Elizabeth was grateful for. She turned her attention back to the mirror, to her own disheveled appearance, and found herself dumbstruck. In some ways, she looked like Booker - there were bags under her eyes and scuffs that hadn't been there before - and in others, she looked like death itself. One streak of blood ran down from her scalp to the space between her eyes; a second dripped freely from her lips onto the ivory table. Her hair was beginning to frizz out around her head, and no matter how much she smoothed it down with her hand it wouldn't stay that way. There was a bruise on her cheek that was beginning to turn a deep indigo, and she couldn't remember ever seeing another person so ...pale.

She gently touched her skin, wincing at the pain that followed, and sighed. None of this felt worth it, and hour by hour she missed the accommodations her tower held. Out of all places to open a Tear to … why here? 

Slowly, she reached around her head, bringing her braid over her shoulder. It was coming undone now, but she could remember the soft humming of the woman who’d made it all the way back in a different Battleship Bay. She’d threaded white flowers into it, though they were long since gone - whether they were destroyed or had simply fallen out, Elizabeth doubted she would ever know.

With trembling hands she began to unplait her hair, leaning her head against the strands to keep it still. Her thumb pulled out loops for her fingers to grab onto, and slowly the braid turned into nothing but a waterfall of hair, cascading down her chest and back. I was supposed to cut it tomorrow, she thought, and the longing that came with the sentence surprised her. Her hair was dirty, and splitting, and more than a few bloodstains had made their home in it.

Suddenly, she wanted it gone. It clung to her neck, sticking to the sweat there, and the longer she thought about it, the worse the sensation became. Which meant there was only one option.

Whoever had stocked the First Lady had certainly come prepared. It took Elizabeth a minute of searching to find the scissors (tucked away inside a night stand just as extravagant as everything else) but she rushed back to the vanity as soon as she did. Her tongue poked slightly out of her mouth as she tried to align herself in a way she could see both the tool and the place where she intended to cut. It took her thirty seconds less to realize that was impossible, not without a stable place to rest her head.

She tried anyway, snipping wherever she felt something brush against her hand. The cut was uneven and choppy, and looking at it made her feel more hopeless than before.

Elizabeth shifted in her seat, twisting a dark coil around her finger. She’d just have to find another way. She was rather good at that, wasn't she? There was a word for it; Booker had called her it more than once -

Booker. The thought dawned on her all at once, and she only hesitated for a moment before standing and slowly drifting towards the door.

\--

The silence was the worst of it.

Booker didn't even think he could call it silence. Though they were getting away from the city now, there were still people screaming outside; a new and violent Columbia was still breaking apart far beneath him. His own thoughts still yelled at him, listing off all the things he could've done to ensure he didn't end up here. 

But Elizabeth hadn't said anything back. And maybe that was the way young women were, sulking in a corner somewhere - he couldn’t exactly blame her, but still. He just hoped she hadn't done something drastic.

Booker let out the breath he'd been holding and turned his attention back to the airship’s controls. The numbers beneath his hands spun back and forth, waiting for him to decide on a place to go. He wouldn't. Couldn't, rather. No point in trying to flee when there was nothing waiting below the clouds.

He took a step back from the dashboard and glanced over his shoulder. Still nothing from the rooms down the hall - now it was starting to get concerning. How long had she been in there? It couldn't have been very long, though it felt like an eternity. Booker wrung his hands and turned back to the front window, wincing as he watched another piece of the sky city, begin to crumble. Maybe she was just avoiding the view.

“Booker?” Regardless, he still jumped at her voice.

“Elizabeth.” When he turned, it took him a moment to find her eyes amongst the shadows and the waves of dark hair that framed her face. She closed the distance between them as Booker’s mind struggled to process what was different. “What happened to your hair ..?”

She shrugged, then held out her hand. In her palm rested a rather large pair of white and gold scissors, the kind that would sell for good money back on the mainland. “Cut it.”

He hesitated, tensing under her scrutiny. “Me? Elizabeth, I don't know -”

“It's a pair of scissors, Booker.” Despite himself, he held out a hand, and she slid the tool into his palm and pushed his fingers closed around them. “How hard can they be to use?”

Instead of answering, he stared her down, one eyebrow raised in a silent question. Elizabeth put her hand on her hip and glared right back until finally, Booker sighed and let his shoulders sag. For a moment, his gaze flickered to the window, but it passed, and he found himself walking around her to a tiny table in the corner of the room. “Fine. But I can’t promise it’ll be anything stylish.”

He’d have to be an idiot not to notice the half smile that bloomed across Elizabeth’s face.

Elizabeth sat, and Booker took up a post behind her as sweat pooled in the nooks of his collarbones. You can do this. It’s just hair. He’d cut his own before, sure, and while his hands were good for plenty of things something so delicate seemed out of the question. “How short do you want it?”

She brushed the last few tangles over her shoulder and sat up a little straighter. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

Elizabeth hummed, tapping her fingers against the wood. “Shoulder length is fine, I think. Maybe this way it won't get in the way anymore.”

And Booker nodded, gently placing the first lock of hair in the scissors grasp.

His teeth attacked his lips as he worked, peeling up dry and chapped skin to reveal the red and blood by flesh underneath. Every little snip seemed to echo through the cabin until it was all he could hear. Elizabeth’s hair fell away in coils, pooling at his feet, though he did his best not to pay attention to their gentle nudges.

“Resourceful.” She spoke quietly, but not quietly enough - Booker lifted his head up ever so slightly, the scissors halfway through another lock of hair. In answer to the question stuck on his tongue Elizabeth shook her head. “Forgot a word earlier. It’s nothing.”

“If you’re sure.” He closed his fist, noticing a second too late his grip had shifted, and the scissors along with it. “Shit.”

Elizabeth sucked in a tight breath. “It’s fine. Just keep going.”

“It’s not going to look good.”

“When did you become a perfectionist?” Her comment is teasing, but the nervous tones it carries tell him she’s still not quite over … everything, if he had to guess.

He tried to cut slower from then on, despite his shaking hands. The longer he took, the more his companion - his customer? - began to fidget; from playing with her empty sleeve to blowing aside the few strands of hair that end up in her face.

" ... What are we going to do?"

He knew better than to look up this time, instead focused on trimming an uneven edge. "About what? You're going to have to be more specific."

"About..." Elizabeth sighed, her shaking subdued for a moment. "About everything. I don't want to go back down there."

"It won't be for long," Booker says, making another promise he couldn't keep. One of her longer curls caught on the chair's back on the way down. "Open a Tear, see if we can find the universe where we came from. Help Daisy."

"And then?"

He stalled. And then, indeed.

"Maybe we'll go to Paris." He mumbled it, as if the girl hadn't been listening intently to his every word. "I need a break."

There is a silence that seems to go on forever and forever. Slowly Elizabeth nodded, the barest shake of her head. "Paris," she said, and it doesn't sound like the paradise she once thought it to be. "Yes. I think .. I think that's a good idea."

And then he finished. Booker took a step back from the chair and set the scissors down on the table. “Do you have a mirror?”

“There’s one in the back room,” she started. “The one I was in earlier. I’ll close my eyes.” Elizabeth’s hand found his wrist after only a moment’s search, though she didn't object to him holding open either the door to the cabin or her sanctuary.

Golden light seeped in through the window as Elizabeth sat down at the vanity. He didn't have to prompt her - she opened her eyes the moment she felt velvet beneath her, and let out a long, slow sigh.

Now, Booker could take in what he'd done. He had to admit it wasn't the worst it could possibly be, but he could still tell all too well where some parts of her hair were badly layered, where cuts didn't line up as smoothly. Elizabeth ran her fingers through it, her mouth open in a soft O, and Booker waited for the inevitable criticism.

“I like it.” Her voice was faint; tired, but still hers. “I didn't think it would be this … this light. Is this what your hair feels like?” She looked up at him with curiosity, but Booker could only shrug.

“Mine probably weighs less than that, actually.” His eyes drifted down his reflection to the scars across his face, half hidden by graying stubble - then back to Elizabeth, still starstruck. “It suits you.”

His charge nodded. “Thank you, Booker.”

“You can thank me by helping me clean up the mess you left behind.”

He could see the way Elizabeth tried and failed to hide the rolling of her eyes as she stood up again; and despite himself, Booker felt his lips curl into a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope i'm tagging this right! happy birthday!


End file.
